British Hacker Suspect Charged With Cybercrimes

The 19-year-old suspect in the Lulz Security hacking spree has been been charged with "cybercrimes," including a DDoS attack on the British Serious Organized Crime Agency, according to Sky News—no charges related to hacks in the U.S. were filed.

Ryan Cleary was arrested yesterday in Essex; he's believed to have run a chat server for Lulzsec. According to the Daily Mail, Cleary's mother said "her son suffers from agoraphobia and attention deficit disorder and had not left his home for four years."

"He is a complete recluse, he would only come out of his room to use the bathroom. I would have to leave his dinner outside his room door," She told the paper. Sometimes, stereotypes are true.

Lulzsec is doing its best not to appear unbowed. After brushing off the arrest, they angrily outed two "snitches" via their Twitter account, whom they claimed were responsible for Cleary's bust. (Which sort of undermines their previous claim that Cleary wasn't a member!) And a Brazilian Lulzsec franchise claimed to have taken down the Brazilian president's website with a DDoS attack. But the noose is tightening: Cleary was no Lulzsec "mastermind," as some reports claimed, but data from the chat server he ran for the group might prove crucial in lining up the core Lulzsec crew.